Tuesday, April 29, 2014

Tue Apr 29th Todays News

He died young but Évariste Galois contributed much to Mathematics in his twenty years. He was a genius, growing up in France during a time of rebellion and revolution. Born in 1811, Galois had developed ideas regarding groups in Mathematics that had never been considered before. He discovered a way of showing that a polynomial was solvable with real numbers. He developed a way of looking at connections of discrete objects organised in groups, and now called Group Theory. But he also had ideas about justice and fairness, and he embraced republicanism under a monarchy that zealously protected itself. Galois was jailed after failing to toast the king. But his passion, his life's work, was Mathematics. He begged to share his ideas with others. He tried to go to university. The entrance tests had written and spoken components. Galois twice aced the written tests, but he was a nervous speaker, and some in the panel of examiners ridiculed him before failing him. Twice. Galois was set up by royalists over a prostitute. The girl befriended him, and was denounced by the royalists. Galois in defence of her honour, challenged them to a duel. Another Math genius, Fourier, recognised Galois's work, and promised to send it for an academy prize, but before he did, the elderly Fourier died. On the eve of the duel, Galois gave his precious papers to a friend with instructions of who to show them to. Galois was shot in the stomach and died the next day. His letters were misplaced for a decade and when read, his genius was declared. Speaking to his younger brother before dying, he said Ne pleure pas, Alfred ! J'ai besoin de tout mon courage pour mourir à vingt ans ! (Don't cry, Alfred! I need all my courage to die at twenty.) And the truth then, as now, is that liars like those who promote AGW alarmism will kill their opponents without mercy. 

Also in France on this day in 1944, Nancy Wake parachuted to liaise between British high command and the Maquis. Nancy was NZ born (1912), and came to Australia young. Her father left the family for her mother to raise Nancy and her siblings. She went to North Sydney Technical college. She ran away from home at age 16, with £200 that she had inherited from an aunt, she journeyed to New York, then London where she trained herself as a journalist. In the 1930s, she worked in Paris and later for Hearst newspapers as a European correspondent. She witnessed the rise of Adolf Hitlerand the Nazi movement and "saw roving Nazi gangs randomly beating Jewish men and women in the streets" of Vienna. She became a leading figure in the maquis groups of the French Resistance and was one of the Allies' most decorated servicewomen of the war. After the fall of France in 1940, she became a courier for the French Resistance and later joined the escape network of Captain Ian Garrow. By 1943, Wake was the Gestapo's most wanted person, with a 5 million-franc price on her head. After reaching Britain, Wake joined the Special Operations Executive. On the night of 29/30 April 1944, Wake was parachuted into the Auvergne, becoming a liaison between London and the local maquis group headed by Captain Henri Tardivat in the Forest of Tronçais. From April 1944 until the liberation of France, her 7,000+ maquisards fought 22,000 SS soldiers, causing 1,400 casualties, while suffering only 100 themselves.

 She was a Liberal party candidate several times, almost taking HV Evatt's seat twice. She had worked for Hearst, who was also born on this day, in 1863. 

 For twenty two years I have been responsibly addressing an issue, and I cannot carry on. I am petitioning the Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott to remedy my distress. I leave it up to him if he chooses to address the issue. Regardless of your opinion of conservative government, the issue is pressing. Please sign my petition at https://www.change.org/en-AU/petitions/tony-abbott-remedy-the-persecution-of-dd-ball
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Hatches
Happy birthday and many happy returns to all those born on this day, across the years, including
Matches
Despatches
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NERD-ON-NERD VIOLENCE

Tim Blair – Tuesday, April 29, 2014 (1:20pm)

Remember all those stories about scientists being bullied by scary climate deniers? At the CSIRO, it turns out that the bullies are other scientists: 
The CSIRO is setting up an internal bully-busting unit amid the fall-out from the accusations of toxic workplaces that have dogged the organisation for several years.
The leader of wide-ranging investigation into the claims says that many improvements have been made at the CSIRO but was concerned that more than half of the staffers who responded to a recent survey said they would still be afraid to speak out about workplace bullying.
After the second phase of a wide-ranging probe into the CSIRO’s workplaces around Australia only two managers are being recommended for code-of-conduct investigations, after 110 complaints of bad behavior were probed.
The organisation’s staff association has accepted the findings of the report and says the CSIRO is ready to learn its lessons and move on from the issue, but not everyone is happy, with one former scientist dismissing the investigation and report as a “conspiracy” and another describing it as a “political stunt”.
Readers are invited to speculate about just what sort of bullying happens at the CSIRO.
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GET IT RIGHT

Tim Blair – Tuesday, April 29, 2014 (12:39pm)

A worrying indication of declining literacy in my old home town. Kids these days can’t even spell “spaz”.
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BURN

Tim Blair – Tuesday, April 29, 2014 (11:51am)

Attention, stupid hippie anti-coal protesters! You know what’s really good for keeping fires burning and wheels turning?
Fossil fuels.
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TRAWLIN’ AIN’T TROLLIN’

Tim Blair – Tuesday, April 29, 2014 (11:19am)

A slight reading error provokes an episode of paranoid hysteria for Julian Burnside, the Daffy Duck of Australian left-wing activism.
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BETTER SAFE THAN SORRY

Tim Blair – Tuesday, April 29, 2014 (10:49am)

Tracey Spicer tells Fairfax why she doesn’t want her kids sitting next to men on planes: 
Not all men are paedophiles but offenders are predominantly male.
I figure it’s better to be safe than sorry. 
Change “men” and “male” to “Muslims” and “paedophiles” to “terrorists”. The statement remains true, but the chances of it appearing in a Fairfax publication are somewhat reduced.
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SUGARLAND

Tim Blair – Tuesday, April 29, 2014 (10:26am)

A vision of Australia appears in my supply of Billington’s caster sugar:

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I can see what used to be Ayer's Rock, but where is Tasmania? Why is New Jersey on the east coast of Australia? - ed
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Abbott is breaking the wrong promise

Andrew Bolt April 29 2014 (5:34pm)

Tony Abbott is breaking the wrong promise.
The problem with Abbott’s deficit tax is that he promised no new taxes - and promised it on camera (from 5:53), guaranteeing it will be played again and again:
What you’ll get under us are tax cuts without new taxes.
There is a reason Labor and the Greens say they’ll oppose the tax, even though their eyes usually light up at taxes on the “rich”. It’s that they reckon they can make Abbott bleed with a broken promises attack, just as he make Gillard bleed to death over her broken carbon tax promise.
And the only defence Abbott has mounted so far is likely to give comedians lots of material:
I think if there was a permanent increase in taxation that would certainly be inconsistent with the sort of things that were said before the election.
True, this broken promise would be less potent than Gillard’s. Who bleeds for the “rich” - except, of course, some important Liberal supporters and donors?
That’s why I suggested in a post below that a tax rise on the “rich” could still be good politically, given the cuts to come on middle-class welfare and the charges for “free” government services.
But now I’m less sure. Labor and the Greens both suggest they’ll oppose the tax, hoping to make Abbott seem the liar. They would need just two votes of the eight crossbenchers to block the tax in the Senate. And they’d get them:
Clive Palmer said his party would “certainly oppose” the levy.
That’s four votes right there, plus those of Family First, the Liberal Democrats and the DLP. More than enough, even without Palmer.
These Senators could block Abbott’s tax, so that’s he’s nailed as a promise breaker for nothing. Reputation lost, money not gained:
The Senate cannot block the appropriations bills that provide the “ordinary annual services for the budget” – effectively the money that continues to run government. But bills that implement new budget policies not previously been legislated can be amended or blocked in the Senate, and often have been – for example when the Howard government was forced to negotiate with the Australian Democrats to win support for the goods and services tax.
Mind you, the Greens should be able to be bought off to approve a new tax on the ‘rich”. But what kind of look is that?
No, if Abbott must break a promise it should be the promise that is actually hurting him - the promise to bring in a rolled-gold paid parental leave scheme that every other party and lots of his own MPs oppose.
Don’t break the promise on taxes. Break the one the parental leave scheme. It will hurt much, much less. Even better, it will spare Abbott more Senate grief when he tries to get his parental leave scheme passed. And, of course, breaking that promise makes the Liberals truer to the word on changing the entitlement culture.
Wrong promise. Go back. 
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Modern manners: man arrested for quoting Winston Churchill

Andrew Bolt April 29 2014 (3:55pm)

Free speech

Astonishing. Winston Churchill would have been arrested in modern Britain:
A candidate in the South East European elections has been arrested after making a speech quoting from a book by Winston Churchill about Islam.
Paul Weston, chairman of Liberty GB, was making the speech on the steps of Winchester Guildhall in Hampshire on Saturday after a passer-by complained.
He was detained after failing to comply with a request by police to move on under the powers of a dispersal order.
He was further arrested on suspicion of religious or racial harassment.
(Incidentally, a Guardian reader of an article by one of the “fair-skinned Aborigines” who successfully sued me identifies the error I am said to have made about her - one of the errors which is said to justify the banning of two of my columns arguing for an end to “race"-based division. I’d like to say more in response to the article but the legal danger is now too high.)
But back to the story…
True, the passage of Churchill which Weston quoted may jar modern sensibilities. There is also the fear in modern multicultural Britain of a violent backlash from a minority largely imported since Churchill’s time. Here is the passage, from The River War: An Account of the Reconquest of the Sudan:

Icon Arrow Continue reading 'Modern manners: man arrested for quoting Winston Churchill'
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Warmists said thin ice threatened polar bears. Now the problem is thick ice

Andrew Bolt April 29 2014 (9:59am)

We were told thin ice - thanks to global warming - threatened to wipe out polar bears. Here’s the ABC in 2004:
Polar Bears: On Thin Ice tells the dramatic story of the polar bears of Hudson Bay, Canada… In fact, the ice is crucial to the bears’ survival - they use the ice as a platform to hunt their favourite food, ringed seals.
When the ice breaks up in the summer months, the bears are forced onto dry land and face many lean months as they wait for the ice to reform. Global warming is the latest threat facing these great bears. The sea ice is forming later and breaking up earlier than ever before. This gives the bears less time to fatten up before the summer fast. 

But now we’re told the threat to polar bears comes from too much cooling:
Five meters of ice– about 16 feet thick - is threatening the survival of polar bears in the Southern Beaufort Sea region along Alaska’s Arctic coast, according to Dr. Susan J. Crockford, an evolutionary biologist in British Columbia who has studied polar bears for most of her 35-year career.
That’s because the thick ice ridges could prevent ringed seals, the bears’ major prey, from creating breathing holes they need to survive in the frigid waters, Crockford told CNSNews.com.
“Prompted by reports of the heaviest sea ice conditions on the East Coast ‘in decades’ and news that ice on the Great Lakes is, for mid-April, the worst it’s been since records began, I took a close look at the ice thickness charts for the Arctic,” Crockford noted in her Polar Bear Science blog on April 18th.
(Thanks to reader Bernie Slattery.) 
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Abbott would rather lose his parental leave scheme to the Greens than his own

Andrew Bolt April 29 2014 (9:49am)

I’m sure Tony Abbott and Joe Hockey won’t mind losing this battle, but they’d prefer to lose in exchange for concessions from other political parties - and not through an internal revolt:
Tony Abbott risks being rolled over his signature paid parental leave policy with the Australian Greens rethinking their support and a growing group of Liberal senators poised to join rebel Nationals to block the legislation.
Sources said a group of Liberal senators, including Cory Bernardi, Ian Macdonald and Dean Smith, have told colleagues they either harbour deep reservations or have resolved not to support the scheme when it comes before Parliament later this year.
The Greens had originally given in-principle support for the scheme ... (b)ut with Mr Abbott confirming cuts to pensions, welfare and family benefits in the May budget, a senior Greens source said the party was now actively considering withdrawing its support...If the Greens vote down the scheme, it is dead.
If the Greens decide to support the scheme, albeit with the minor amendments they have been demanding, it would take just five Coalition senators to cross the floor or abstain from voting to defeat it..."There are enough to stop it,’’ said one senior Liberal of the plans by the senators.
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Abbott should also honour his tax promise to the “rich”. UPDATE: But the politics says yes to a levy

Andrew Bolt April 29 2014 (9:33am)

Tony Abbott promises to keep his promise on pensions:
To keep our commitments, there will be no changes to the pension during this term of parliament but there should be changes to indexation arrangements and eligibility thresholds in three years’ time.
Good.
Middle-class welfare, though, will be trimmed (but not chopped). Abbott again:
There are other social security benefits where indexation arrangements and eligibility thresholds should be adjusted now so that our social safety net is more sustainable for the long-term. Such benefits won’t be less tomorrow than they are today but the rate of increase will be slower and needs to be slower if a comprehensive social safety net is to be preserved for everyone’s future.
Fine.
A line will be drawn for middle-class handouts:
FAMILIES will lose access to taxpayer benefits under a hard-line plan to slash budget spending as Tony Abbott signals a new income threshold of $100,000 to determine who gets “handouts” from Canberra.
Great.
But it seems there will a big tax rise on the high-income earners when just the top fifth of income earners are already the only ones who pay more than they get?

... reports last night suggested the deficit levy would be set at ­1 per cent of income for those earning more than $80,000 and double to 2 per cent for those earning $180,000 or more…

“I can assure you that everyone will be involved, including high-income earners such as members of parliament,” Mr Abbott said of the budget overhaul.
It seems to me this savage 2 per cent tax hike on richer Australians is a political exercise, appeasing jealousies to sell the necessary cuts to middle-class welfare. But it’s poor economics and an even poorer example to set Labor, which will use this precedent once back in power:
Under the new levy someone earning $150,000 will pay an extra $1500 a year. A worker on $200,000 will be slugged an extra $4000 a year, while a taxpayer earning $400,000 will pay $8000 in extra tax.
Yet another 2 per cent of income donated to government? And a broken promise?:
“I think people are expecting us to cut spending, not put a new tax in place,” said one Liberal MP yesterday as concerns spread about the proposal before cabinet.
“People understand this will be a tough budget but I don’t think they expect to get hit with a new tax. And it would go against everything we’ve been saying for three, four years.”
Tony Abbott in November 2012:
TONY ABBOTT: We are about reducing taxes, not increasing taxes. We are about getting rid of taxes, not imposing new taxes.

QUESTION: Is that a promise?
ABBOTT: This is my whole reason for being in politics, in the Parliament.
Meanwhile Labor seems determined to prove it’s learned nothing and repented even less from the financial disasters it inflicted. It is making clear that had it been returned, it would have kept spending more than we earn:
Bill Shorten disputed the government’s central assumptions that deficits would amount to $123 billion over four years and federal debt would reach $667bn without action to cut spending. The Opposition Leader said the Abbott government had “concocted a budget emergency” to justify measures that broke election promises and apply a new tax on households.
UPDATE
But Terry McCrann says a deficit levy is both good politics and a Budget virtue:

JOE Hockey’s coming “sharing the pain” deficit levy is — very — clever, entirely reasonable and indeed appropriate politics.
It is also good and necessary budget policy…
Rudd, Gillard and Rudd — actually, Wayne Swan who reigned as treasurer from start, all the way to almost the awful end — bequeathed both the incoming Abbott-Hockey government, and indeed all the rest of us, huge and never-ending deficits.
These deficits ran through every year of the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd governments — adding up to a staggering $192 billion over the five years to 2012-13.
The numbers Hockey will unveil in two weeks will show we were heading for at least another $160 billion of deficits over the next five years to 2017-18… Most disturbingly of all, Hockey will show that a “do-nothing” approach would have left the deficit at a huge $30 billion in the 2017-18 year…
[The Budget levy] ... will make a not inconsiderable contribution — perhaps as much as $3 billion a year — to cutting deficits in the immediate future…
The much bigger part of the deficit cut WILL come from reining back spending… But it is simply inconceivable that the Government could place all the adjustment only on the spending side of the Budget. That it would slash and burn low-income earners, people reliant — true, arguably, too reliant — on budget payments; and leave totally untouched the revenue side. That it would not ask people actually earning an income to make a contribution, to “share the pain”.
So given what Hockey inherited, a deficit levy was always inevitable. 
David Uren:

THE only excuse for a deficit levy is that the pain of the government’s spending cuts would otherwise be focused overwhelmingly on the poor… It may be poor economics to add to income taxes, but the politics of spreading the pain much higher up the income ladder is likely to appeal.
(Thanks to reader PaulC.) 
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Palmer the bully

Andrew Bolt April 29 2014 (9:10am)

Hedley Thomas on Clive Palmer’s sinister record for suing politicians and critics for hurting his too-delicate feelings:
Not for the first time, (Queensland Premier Campbell Newman) said that Clive, a major political donor ..., wanted to “buy’’ the new Liberal National Party government to advance his own commercial interests…
Thin-skinned Clive cannot handle that sort of talk. Remember that (Newman’s) predecessor as premier, Anna Bligh, was dragged into the “Being Sued By Clive Palmer Club” because she had the temerity to speak frankly, too… Clive simply announced an $8 billion action against the former Queensland government for alleged breach of confidentiality. Just $8bn. Like hot air, the legal suit wafted away.
But the double standard in Clive’s parallel universe is always on display. He demands the freedom to say what he likes no matter how outlandish or offensive the utterances.
He tars News Corp head Rupert Murdoch’s former wife Wendi Deng as a “Chinese spy’’. He brands Northern Territory Chief Minister Adam Giles a “liar’’. He condemns cabinet ­ministers in Newman’s government as “corrupt’’. He accuses Newman of having a mental health condition. Yet when strong words come at Clive his ­response is: “I’m going to sue.’’
UPDATE
Clive Palmer suddenly discovers Aboriginal issues, as Aboriginal politicians discover a rich patron:

ALISON Anderson ... has not explained how she will be better able to deliver for her constituents as a member of PUP…
The PUP’s 148-page policy document, a compilation of media releases rather than detailed policies, contains only one page on indigenous affairs, devoted to bemoaning poor rates of indigenous infant mortality ..
The only other reference to indigenous affairs is a commitment to devote $5 billion to Aboriginal health, with a promise to release further details in the lead- up to last year’s federal election.
Andrew Burrell, 21 June 2013:

AS the mining boom hit full steam in early 2008, Queensland tycoon Clive Palmer declared he would donate $100 million of his wealth to Aboriginal communities in Western Australia as part of an overall giveaway of $1 billion across the nation…
(G)roups working on indigenous health in the Pilbara say there is no record of Mr Palmer donating any money to the cause or starting his own charity work since 2008…
A spokesman for Mr Palmer declined to comment on when the $100m donation might be delivered.
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
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Tidying up after Rudd after his Nauru deal gives us zero

Andrew Bolt April 29 2014 (9:02am)

Nauru offers only five years of settlement to refugees, fearing it will be swamped or divided:

Asylum seekers on Nauru who are found to be refugees have been told they will be resettled on the island for five years where they will be given work rights and the opportunity to establish their own businesses…
The maximum settlement period leaves it likely refugees will need to be resettled in a third country such as Cambodia, which is also looking likely to sign a deal with Australia to accept refugees.... There are currently 1177 people in detention centres on Nauru.
This isn’t what Kevin Rudd claimed he’d arranged in August 2013:

Asylum seekers who arrive in Australia by boat can now be processed in Nauru and, if found to be genuine refugees, can be resettled there under an agreement signed by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Nauru’s president Baron Waqa…
Mr Rudd says refugees who arrive in Australia will be sent offshore for processing and will be free to “settle and reside in Nauru"… He also says he understands Nauru is a small country and the number of people who could be permanently resettled there would be up to the government of Nauru.
And Nauru says the answer is zero. Another fine mess Rudd left us.
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
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Julian Burnside sees Abbott-paid trolls under his bed

Andrew Bolt April 29 2014 (8:35am)

“Human rights” campaigner Julian Burnside seriously believes the Liberal National Party - by which he actually means the Abbott Government - is paying trolls to abuse him:
image
His bizarre conspiracy theory - which appeals to his rather inflamed sense of self - is inspired by an article he seems to have badly misread:

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Matt Hayden:
As you’ll see, the article is titled “Social media trawled as Government spends $4.3 million on research contracts”.
You’d have to conclude that Julian Burnside has seen the headline, mistaken trawled for trolled and not read any further.
That, or maybe he has read it thoroughly, and his deep-seated prejudice against conservatives and febrile imagination have combined to create this surreal scenario.
This reminds me of an event which first revealed to me Burnside’s absurd conviction that conservatives were utterly evil. I agreed to do a fundraiser for refugees for him in the form of a hypothetical, held at the Melbourne Town Hall. (For my pains, some of his audience hissed me.)
Burnside had me play the role of a minister in a peace-time Liberal Government, and then announced this government planned to round up tens of thousands of immigrants to bus them into detention camps. Burnside’s plan sprang a leak when I did what I assume every Liberal in any such government would do if presented with such an absurd plan: I resigned in protest, saying this was not an Australia I recognised. Burnside ploughed on regardless, unable to compute.
More on Burnside’s paranoia on Hayden’s blog. 
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Did the ABC try to con the Government over its China deal?

Andrew Bolt April 29 2014 (8:09am)

Did the ABC rush out a dodgy claim about a breakthrough deal with China to stop a Budget decision to strip it of its Australia Network?:

THERE are growing doubts over the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s supposed deal with the Shanghai Media Group (SMG), which the ABC claims will broadcast Australian-generated content to hundreds of millions of Chinese television viewers.
The national broadcaster is due to sign a memorandum of understanding with SMG, the second-largest state-owned broad­caster in China, next weekend in Shanghai.
However, it appears basic ­details of the proposed co-operation are yet to be finalised amid claims the announcement was rushed forward to be delivered before the federal budget is handed down next month…
The ABC claimed it would team up with SMG’s internat­ional channel in an online portal from which Australian shows would be made available to be broadcast across China…
However, the supervisory body has told The Australian it had not been approached by ­either party. “We have not received any ­application about this co-operation and have not expressed support or approval of it in any way,” a spokeswoman called Ms Xu said…
The ABC originally quoted the executive director of SMG’s International Channel, Sun Wei, who said the Chinese broadcaster was keen to develop relationships with international broadcasters as part of its expansion strategy… However, Mr Sun refused to comment when contacted on the proposed new deal and a spokesman for the broader SMG group was not aware of the ABC’s announcement.
If the ABC did try to game the Government I expect the retribution to be swift.
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
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Sea level rises down 30 per cent. Still waiting for Robyn Williams’ 100 metres

Andrew Bolt April 29 2014 (7:42am)

Global warming - dud predictions

Sea level rises were the great bogeyman of the warmists.  Take this 2007 scare from ABC science presenter Robyn “100 metres” Williams:
Andrew Bolt: I’m telling you, there’s a lot of fear out there. So what I do is, when I see an outlandish claim being made..., Tim Flannery suggesting rising seas this next century eight stories high, Professor Mike Archer, ... dean of science, suggesting rising seas this next century of up to 100 metres, or Al Gore six metres.... I ask you, Robyn, 100 metres in the next century...do you really think that?
Robyn Williams: It is possible, yes. The increase of melting that they’ve noticed in Greenland and the amount that we’ve seen from the western part of Antarctica, if those increases of three times the expected rate continue, it will be huge.
But a new paper concedes sea level rises have in fact slowed to a rate that, if sustained, would give us rises this century of not 100 metres but just 24cm:
Present-day sea-level rise is a major indicator of climate change. Since the early 1990s, sea level rose at a mean rate of ~3.1 mm yr?1. However, over the last decade a slowdown of this rate, of about 30%, has been recorded.
The researchers (Cazenave et al., published by Nature Climate Change), seem more convinced by their warming theories than by evidence, and blame temporary natural factors for masking the real rise they expect:
We find that when correcting for interannual variability, the past decade’s slowdown of the global mean sea level disappears, leading to a similar rate of sea-level rise (of 3.3 ± 0.4 mm yr?1) during the first and second decade of the altimetry era.
(Which, by the way, would still give us - if sustained - sea level rises this century not of 100 metres but 33cm.)
Professor Judith Curry, Professor and Chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology, isn’t buying:
Recall this figure from AR5 on 20th century sea level rise: 
image
Consider the following statements from Cazenave regarding global sea level rise:

the 20th century average is 2 mm/yr,

observations from 1992-2002 are 3.4 mm/yr
observations from 2003-2011 are 2.4 mm/yr
when corrected for an abundance of La Ninas, sea level rise from 2003-2011 is ‘adjusted’ to 3.3 mm/yr
...I don’t think there is any objective/convincing way to filter out the effects of El Nino/La Nina.  They seem to be an intrinsic part of sea level variations, as is the PDO/AMO on multidecadal time scales.
Can someone then tell me how you can infer that sea level rise is accelerating due to AGW, when compared with sea level rise for the first half of the 20th century?
It is clear that natural variability has dominated sea level rise during the 20th century, with changes in ocean heat content and changes in precipitation patterns.
Once again, the emerging best explanations for the ‘pause’ in global surface temperatures and the slow down in sea level rise bring into question the explanations for the rise in both in the last quarter of the 20th century.  And makes the 21st century of sea level rise projections seem like unjustified arm waving.
Larry Hamlin at Watts Up With That adds:
The slowing in the measured rate of sea level rise during the last decade has occurred while the RSS satellite measured global lower-troposphere temperature record now has more than half of its 35+ year temperature record, which began data collection in January 1979, showing no global warming whatsoever since August 1996 as demonstrated in the graph below taken from an article in Real Science addressing this “pause”.
image
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Ukraine mayor shot. And a lesson for Australians…

Andrew Bolt April 29 2014 (7:33am)

Ukraine gets worse:
THE mayor of Ukraine’s second-largest city was shot in the back and hundreds of men attacked a peaceful pro-Ukraine rally with batons, bricks and stun grenades, wounding dozens as tensions soared in Ukraine’s volatile east.
One presidential candidate said the mayor was deliberately targeted in an effort to destabilise the entire city of Kharkiv, a hub of 1.5 million people.
Armed insurgents tacitly backed by Moscow are seeking more autonomy in eastern Ukraine — and possibly even independence or annexation with Russia. Ukraine’s acting government and the West have accused Russia of orchestrating the unrest, which they fear Moscow could use as a pretext for an invasion.
The geo-political dangers are, of course, the most pressing. But seeing this ethnic conflict, with Ukrainians divided by their ethnic “identities”, it strikes me against how recklessly stupid Australia’s elites have been to not just tolerate the ethnic identity game here but to foster it with grants and protect it with laws.
Are we mad? 
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A “levy” is still a tax rise

Andrew Bolt April 29 2014 (7:21am)

Julia Gillard popularised the use of a “levy” in an attempt to disguise the truth - she was in fact raising taxes.
Precedent being set, it is about to be eagerly followed by a Liberal Government that would faint in horror at tax rises but is only too glad to raise “levies” instead.
For instance:

Tony Abbott’s generous paid parental leave scheme ...  is to be funded by a 1.5 per cent levy (translation: a tax) on big business...
And now, according to Terry McCrann:
TAXPAYERS will be slugged with a debt levy taking an extra $800 a year from someone earning $80,000…
Taxpayers in the 37c tax bracket — on incomes of $80,000 to $180,000 — are likely to pay an extra 1 per cent. Those earning above $180,000 are likely to pay an extra 2 per cent…

A worker on $200,000 will be slugged an extra $4000 a year, while a taxpayer earning $400,000 will pay $8000 in extra tax.
If Labor promised tax rises for the “rich” and for business, the Liberals would hit the roof.
But after seeing the Liberals do the very same, tricking up tax rises as “levies”, we can be certain Labor now knows how to get away with it.   
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If Chahal were a Republican, he’d be kicked himself

Andrew Bolt April 29 2014 (6:25am)

How the Left hates

Good question posed at the end:
CCTV footage caught Gurbaksh Chahal, the CEO of San Francisco tech startup RadiumOne, kicking his girlfriend 117 times, including blows to the head, and trying to smother her with a pillow during a vicious 30-minute assault…
Silicon Valley executives have come under scrutiny for their political activities in recent weeks. The CEO of web browser company Mozilla was forced to step down after it was revealed that he donated $1,000 to an anti-gay marriage proposition in 2008.
Chahal’s political contributions indicate more liberal sensibilities. He has donated more than $100,000 since 2011, all of which went the Democratic Party and Democratic candidates.
Those contributions include $81,600 to the Democratic National Committee and $5,000 to President Barack Obama’s reelection campaign… Chahal has visited the White House twice…
It was not immediately clear whether activists who boycotted Mozilla for its former CEO’s opposition to gay marriage would also target RadiumOne and other Chahal startups.
As if.
Another as if - think the Sydney Morning Herald would mention Chahal’s big political donations to the Democrats?
(Thanks to reader Adam.) 
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Post by David Daniel Ball.

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Post by David Daniel Ball.

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Post by David Daniel Ball.

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Post by David Daniel Ball.

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AGW believers afraid of facts. The 97% figure is not true. Those exposing the myth of AGW tend not to be supported by big oil, which is focused on trade, but outraged scientists who have been denied the cash and kudos given to liars who spruik AGW alarmism
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Post by David Daniel Ball.

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Post by David Daniel Ball.

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Post by David Daniel Ball.

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Post by David Daniel Ball.

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Post by David Daniel Ball.

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Post by David Daniel Ball.

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Post by David Daniel Ball.

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Post by David Daniel Ball.

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Post by David Daniel Ball.

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Post by David Daniel Ball.

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Post by David Daniel Ball.

=== Posts from last year ===
4 her, so she can see how I see her

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In response to a rocket fired from Gaza and aimed at Israeli civilians in southern Israel, the IDF targeted two terror sites in in the Strip this morning. The targets were a terrorist weapon storage facility and a Hamas training compound in southern Gaza. There are 3.5 million Israeli civilians in the range of rockets from Gaza.
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3,318 LOW TEMPERATURE RECORDS BROKEN IN THE USA

Remember a few short weeks ago, when Labor’s Climate Commissioner Tim Flannery excited claimed that breaking of 123 high temperature records over January “really takes us into a new climatic territory”. 

I wonder what Mr Flannery will say given that in the past week no less than 3,318 daily records have been set or matched across the United States for either the coldest night or the coldest day.
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Hey everypeeps!
I snuck in another Hulk submission just before the deadline ended. Hope ya'll like this one, and if you do, please vote/share, lemme know what you think:)
http://www.threadless.com/Hulk/hulk-riiip-2/
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Experiments with plain old corn syrup have revealed that giant jets of magma rising up from near the Earth's core might explain supervolcanic activity seen at Yellowstone.http://oak.ctx.ly/r/4frr
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Reflection Of The Nature, Norway
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"You do realise I said it was $7.5bn last week".
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April 29: Shōwa Day in Japan
Nancy Wake
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Holidays and observances[edit]

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“In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross!” - Philippians 2:5-8
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Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon

Morning

"Remember the word unto thy servant, upon which thou hast caused me to hope."
Psalm 119:49
Whatever your especial need may be, you may readily find some promise in the Bible suited to it. Are you faint and feeble because your way is rough and you are weary? Here is the promise--"He giveth power to the faint." When you read such a promise, take it back to the great Promiser, and ask him to fulfil his own word. Are you seeking after Christ, and thirsting for closer communion with him? This promise shines like a star upon you--"Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled." Take that promise to the throne continually; do not plead anything else, but go to God over and over again with this--"Lord, thou hast said it, do as thou hast said." Are you distressed because of sin, and burdened with the heavy load of your iniquities? Listen to these words--"I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions, and will no more remember thy sins." You have no merit of your own to plead why he should pardon you, but plead his written engagements and he will perform them. Are you afraid lest you should not be able to hold on to the end, lest, after having thought yourself a child of God, you should prove a castaway? If that is your state, take this word of grace to the throne and plead it: "The mountains may depart, and the hills may be removed, but the covenant of my love shall not depart from thee." If you have lost the sweet sense of the Saviour's presence, and are seeking him with a sorrowful heart, remember the promises: "Return unto me, and I will return unto you;" "For a small moment have I forsaken thee, but with great mercies will I gather thee." Banquet your faith upon God's own word, and whatever your fears or wants, repair to the Bank of Faith with your Father's note of hand, saying, "Remember the word unto thy servant, upon which thou hast caused me to hope."

Evening

"All the house of Israel are impudent and hardhearted."
Ezekiel 3:7
Are there no exceptions? No, not one. Even the favoured race are thus described. Are the best so bad?--then what must the worst be? Come, my heart, consider how far thou hast a share in this universal accusation, and while considering, be ready to take shame unto thyself wherein thou mayst have been guilty. The first charge is impudence, or hardness of forehead, a want of holy shame, an unhallowed boldness in evil. Before my conversion, I could sin and feel no compunction, hear of my guilt and yet remain unhumbled, and even confess my iniquity and manifest no inward humiliation on account of it. For a sinner to go to God's house and pretend to pray to him and praise him argues a brazen-facedness of the worst kind! Alas! since the day of my new birth I have doubted my Lord to his face, murmured unblushingly in his presence, worshipped before him in a slovenly manner, and sinned without bewailing myself concerning it. If my forehead were not as an adamant, harder than flint, I should have far more holy fear, and a far deeper contrition of spirit. Woe is me, I am one of the impudent house of Israel. The second charge is hardheartedness, and I must not venture to plead innocent here. Once I had nothing but a heart of stone, and although through grace I now have a new and fleshy heart, much of my former obduracy remains. I am not affected by the death of Jesus as I ought to be; neither am I moved by the ruin of my fellow men, the wickedness of the times, the chastisement of my heavenly Father, and my own failures, as I should be. O that my heart would melt at the recital of my Saviour's sufferings and death. Would to God I were rid of this nether millstone within me, this hateful body of death. Blessed be the name of the Lord, the disease is not incurable, the Saviour's precious blood is the universal solvent, and me, even me, it will effectually soften, till my heart melts as wax before the fire.
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In the latest film in the BASIC series, join New York Times best-selling author and speaker Francis Chan as he candidly asks of Christians really understand the true nature of the Holy Spirit.

"If the spirit of God is really in me, I should look completely different than someone who doesn't have the Holy Spirit in them. And if the Holy Spirit is in the midst of our gatherings, then out gatherings should look supernatural and should look different than anything that the world could copy."

Is the church today "super" or "natural"? Would you like your church to be?

BASIC.Holy Spirit challenges us to take "church" back to its biblical origins, and allow the Holy Spirit to truly lead in every endeavor. As Francis says in the film, the results of doing so would be transformative.

"If we would just go back to those same basics, maybe we would see some of those supernatural results that the early church saw."

We invite you to view a BASIC.Holy Spirit trailer and to learn more at:
basicseries.com/films/holy-spirit.php.
What is church? You are church. I am church. We are church.

"If I only had this as my guide ... if all I had was the Bible ... and I was to read this book and then start a 'church,' what would it look like? Would it look like the thing that we've built here and all refer to as church? Or would it look radically different?"

—Francis Chan 



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Judah, Juda, Joda

[Jū'dah] - object of praise or praise of the lord. The fourth son of Jacob by Leah, and founder of a tribal family (Gen. 29:35; Num. 26:19-21; 1 Chron. 2:3-6).

The Man Who Was Praised

The character of Judah is revealed in his confession of sin before Joseph (Gen. 44:18-34). This appeal has been described as "One of the noblest pieces of natural eloquence in any literature, sacred or profane." In the last words of Jacob much is said of Judah (Gen. 49:8). We have:
I. His praise. "Thou art he whom thy brethren shall praise." The origin of his name is to be found in the gratitude of his mother at the time of his birth (Gen. 29:35). A still more distinguished mother praised the Lord for a greater Son who came from the tribe of Judah (Luke 1:46, 47).
II. His conquests. "Thy hand shall be in the neck of thine enemies." Here we have the prophecy of a conqueror, the anticipation of the figure of the lion, which was emblazoned on the flag of Judah, and was symbolic of the strength of the tribe in battle. Judah was the first tribe called to fight the Canaanites after Joshua's death (Judg. 1:1, 2) - a battle ending in victory for Judah. See also Psalm 18:40.
III. His pre-eminence. "Thy father's children shall bow down before thee." The superiority of the tribe of Judah continued almost to the end of the Old Testament and passed on to Him who has the pre-eminence in all things. Judah was first in numbers, first in territory, first in marching order, first in prowess, first in war.
IV. His regal dignity. The lion-king of the forest became the symbol of Judah, as the king of the tribes (Num. 2:3, 4). "A lion's whelp," speaks of the first energy of youth, and the early days of Judah were full of vigor and energy. How prophetic all this is of Him who came as the Lion of the tribe of Judah! The old divines said that Christ was a lamb in His death, but a lion in His resurrection. How different is His prowess from the deadly power of him who is a roaring lion!
2. An ancestor of Kadmiel who helped to rebuild the Temple (Ezra 3:9).
3. A Levite who had taken a strange wife (Ezra 10:23).
4. A Benjamite, son of Senuah, second in authority over Jerusalem in Nehemiah's day (Neh. 11:9).
5. A Levite who returned from exile with Zerubbabel (Neh. 12:8).
6. A prince of Judah (Neh. 12:34).
7. A priest and musician (Neh. 12:36).
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Today's reading: 1 Kings 3-5, Luke 20:1-26 (NIV)

View today's reading on Bible Gateway

Today's Old Testament reading: 1 Kings 3-5

Solomon Asks for Wisdom
1 Solomon made an alliance with Pharaoh king of Egypt and married his daughter. He brought her to the City of David until he finished building his palace and the temple of the LORD, and the wall around Jerusalem. 2 The people, however, were still sacrificing at the high places, because a temple had not yet been built for the Name of the LORD. 3 Solomon showed his love for the LORD by walking according to the instructions given him by his father David, except that he offered sacrifices and burned incense on the high places.
4 The king went to Gibeon to offer sacrifices, for that was the most important high place, and Solomon offered a thousand burnt offerings on that altar. 5 At Gibeon the LORD appeared to Solomon during the night in a dream, and God said, "Ask for whatever you want me to give you...."

Today's New Testament reading: Luke 20:1-26

The Authority of Jesus Questioned
1 One day as Jesus was teaching the people in the temple courts and proclaiming the good news, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, together with the elders, came up to him. 2"Tell us by what authority you are doing these things," they said. "Who gave you this authority?"
3 He replied, "I will also ask you a question. Tell me: 4 John's baptism--was it from heaven, or of human origin?"
5 They discussed it among themselves and said, "If we say, 'From heaven,' he will ask, 'Why didn't you believe him?' 6 But if we say, 'Of human origin,' all the people will stone us, because they are persuaded that John was a prophet."
7 So they answered, "We don't know where it was from."
8 Jesus said, "Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things...."


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